Reptiles as Pets
If you are thinking of keeping a reptile as a pet you should find out what you are letting yourself in for. A book well worth reading is "Care of Australian Reptiles in Captivity" by John Weigel. This contains lots of information on housing, feeding, breeding, diseases as well as care sheets on a whole range of species. There is also a range of booklets produced by Australian Reptile Keeper Publications, Bendigo on keeping Long-necked and Short-necked turtles, Shingleback lizards, Bearded dragons, Blue-tongue lizards and Carpet pythons. Having read up on reptile keeping you will have to decide what particular animals you want to keep.
Long term Commitment
Remember - a reptile is a long term commitment. Turtles can live for more than 30 years, pythons for more than 15 years and lizards such as Blue-tongues for 20 years. Your pet may well outlive you. Today there are 6,800 reptile species on earth; the major groups are alligators and crocodiles, turtles, lizards, and snakes. All reptiles are cold-blooded, which is why they warm themselves in the sun, and have bodies covered in dry, horny scales. Some reptiles lay eggs; others give birth to live young.
Researching and Choosing a Pet Reptile or Amphibian
Before you acquire an exotic animal of any kind, you should learn (research, read) about its care. Over the last few years, as interest in captive reptiles skyrocketed, a series of excellent and inexpensive booklets were published, which explain the care of a particular popular kind of reptile or amphibian. Not every one of the thousands of species of reptiles and amphibians are covered by one of the booklets, but most of the popular species are. The booklets together form the Herpetocultural Library Series, and having read the appropriate booklet, one can go about readying a home for the new reptile. There are other similar booklets available that are simply not as good. These should be passed over in favor of the Herp. Library Series, booklets of which can be ordered through your local pet store or directly from The Bean Farm ((206)-861-7964) in Carnation, Washington, which stocks most of the different titles.
Often, people put the cart before the horse and buy an animal before educating themselves about its needs. The animal then has to endure until its requirements can be discovered and accommodated. This is obviously not ideal.
Sometimes, a pet store staff person will give verbal instructions on care. At best this is too brief -- it is not reasonable to expect one person to tell everything about the care of an exotic animal to another, not to leave anything out, and for the other person to remember it all accurately, for years afterward. At worst, it can be well-intentioned misinformation, or even disinformation to encourage the sale of the animal or associated goods or feed ("Naaah, baby alligators don't get all that big, and you can always donate them to the zoo!").
Some wild-caught animals are sold in pet stores without any real information on their care or even their natural history being available -- they may never have been imported before and no one knows anything about them. This happens all the time as animals from a particular country or region become available, and wholesalers order up a quantity of new, cheap and "cool" animals.
Some captive-bred reptiles and amphibians, which we believe make better classroom "pets" than most are: bearded dragons, horned frogs, corn snakes, boa constrictors, and leopard geckos. All are bred in captivity in large numbers, are fairly easy to care for, and can be handled to a greater or lesser extent (less on the horned frogs, more on everything else).
Some reptiles which are really not good pets: spectacled caimans (also known as "baby alligators"), venomous snakes and giant pythons.
Crocodilians - Alligators & Crocodiles
Snakes as Pets
Other relevant pages - Reptiles as Pets |
| Reptile Breeders |
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